300 
VOYAGE FOR THE DISCOVERY • 
1820. 
Sept. 
of these arises from the length of the voyage which must first be performed, 
in order to arrive at the point where the work is to be begun. After such 
a voyage, admitting that no serious wear and tear have been experienced, 
the most important part of a ship’s resources, namely, the provisions and fuel, 
must be very materially reduced, and this without the possibility of renew- 
ing them to the extent necessary for such a service, and which can alone 
give confidence in the performance of an enterprise of which the nature is so 
precarious and uncertain. 
Nor should it be forgotten how injurious to the health of the crews, so sudden 
and extreme a change of climate would in all probability prove, as that 
which they must necessarily experience in going at once from the heat of the 
torrid zone into the intense cold of a long winter upon the northern shores 
of America. Upon the whole, therefore, I cannot but consider that any ex- 
pedition, equipped by Great Britain with this view, will act with greater 
advantage, by at once employing its best energies in the attempt to pene- 
trate from the eastern coast of America, along its northern shore. 
Whatever may be the result of any future attempt to decide this great 
geographical question, experience has shewn that, independently of any 
benefit which science may derive from such attempts, those already made 
have not been altogether without their use also in a commercial point 
of view. Previously to the return of the Expedition of 1818 from Baffin’s 
Bay, the whale-fishery in that sea was almost entirely confined, during the 
best part of the summer-season, to the eastern or Greenland shores, where, 
at no very distant period, the number of whales was found sufficient to afford 
abundant employment for the numerous fleet of ships which are annually em- 
ployed in this trade. For some years past, however, it has been observed, 
that it requires a much greater share of exertion than formerly, to procure the 
same supply of whales, these animals having been scared from South-East 
and North-East Bays, and the other southern parts of the coast of Greenland, 
which only a few years ago were considered a sure and abundant fishery, and 
retired to the northern and western parts of Baffin’s Bay, where they have 
hitherto been but little molested. Such, indeed, is the general want of success 
on the old ground, that it is a common complaint among our whalers, that 
this fishery appears to be well nigh worn out. Above forty sail of ships 
accompanied the Expedition of 1818 up the coast of Greenland, nearly as 
high as the latitude of 76°, where the whales were found to be so abundant, 
as amply to repay the labour and exertions, by which our fishermen had sue- 
